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Their mother raised her brows. Her gaze slid away from Lucrezia towards Enzo. “I’m very curious as to what you have to say on it.”
Relief flooded Enzo’s veins. At last, a chance to speak in his—and more importantly, Fiore’s—defense. He opened his mouth.
“Enzo?”
Enzo’s pulse quickened at the familiar yet unexpected voice behind him. He whirled toward it.
There in the doorway, pale as bone and drowning in the voluminous folds of Enzo’s wrapping-gown, stood Fiore.
Whatever instinctive joy flashed through Enzo’s heart at the sight of him proved short-lived as his rational mind realized the risk.
Fiore’s dark eyes met his. Then they flicked to each of the three women behind Enzo. They flew wide—then rolled back. He collapsed like one whose thread of life the Fates had snipped.
Enzo leapt to catch him.
~
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Fiore had never intended to eavesdrop.
He had, however, awoken to find Enzo gone and arose to wander in search of him. He didn’t have to venture far before he heard Enzo’s voice—raised in strong feeling, no less. The sound led him to a chamber he’d not yet had the privilege of exploring. The door was already ajar, and Fiore ventured towards it assuming he’d find Enzo conversing with Carlotta or another member of the staff.
So to see instead not just Giovanna and an unknown lady but the prince herself—well. The shock alone would render anybody senseless.
He fell. He didn’t remember landing. But he did blink himself awake again to find Enzo’s face swimming into view above him.
“Fiore?” Enzo murmured urgently, smoothing his hair back from his brow with one hand whilst the other cradled Fiore’s fallen body. “Can you hear me?”
He sounded as if he were underwater at first, but his speech grew clearer with every word, and so Fiore didn’t consider it a lie to nod. Though nodding did make his head swim again. “Forgive me, I—”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Enzo rushed to reassure him. What more he might have said, Fiore knew not, for something drew his notice behind, and he flung his head over his shoulder with a ferocious hiss. “Keep back!”
“Enzo—” one of the women began. Fiore couldn’t tell which. He hadn’t realized how shockingly alike Giovanna and the prince sounded. He supposed he’d never encountered them together before.
“Leave him be,” Enzo snapped. He turned to Fiore again. In soft speech at sharp contrast to how he addressed his sisters, he asked, “Can you stand?”
If Enzo needed him to, then he would certainly make the attempt. But lifting his head only made the room spin again.
“It’s all right,” Enzo told him. “Hold on.”
And with that, he stood, lifting Fiore into his arms as though he weighed no more than fog.
One of the women said something Fiore couldn’t quite discern. Enzo whipped his head toward them.
“This is my house,” Enzo insisted. “Therefore it is his home. He has every right to wander where’er he wishes.”
Which was all very well and romantic but did nothing to allay Fiore’s nerves. If Enzo’s family took offense, then—“Please don’t shout.”
The hard lines of Enzo’s knit brow and clenched jaw softened at once as he regarded Fiore. And in a voice softer still he murmured, “Forgive me.”
Fiore didn’t think it was his place to forgive Enzo this particular outburst.
Enzo turned to his sisters and the unknown woman. In a tone not a shout but which nonetheless brooked no argument, he declared, “We will finish this later.”
And without another word nor backwards glance, Enzo strode from the room, Fiore clasped tight in his embrace.
The journey passed in a blur. Before Fiore could blink, it seemed, he found himself back abed. Enzo knelt beside him. He worked feverishly, daubing Fiore’s brow with a rosewater-soaked cloth, anointing his wrists with the same as his fingertips searched for his pulse, pouring a glass of water and proffering it to his lips.
